COMMUNITY RADIO, PUBLIC INTEREST: THE LOW POWER FM SERVICE AND 21 st CENTURY MEDIA POLICY A Thesis Presented by MARGO L. ROBB Submitted to the Graduate School of the University of Massachusetts in partial fulfillment of the requirement for the degree of MASTER OF ARTS September 2009 Department of Communication COMMUNITY RADIO, PUBLIC INTEREST: THE LOW POWER FM SERVICE AND 21 st CENTURY MEDIA POLICY A Thesis Presented by MARGO L. ROBB Approved as to style and content by: ____________________________________________ Mari Castañeda, Chair ____________________________________________ Sut Jhally, Member __________________________________________ Douglas L. Anderton, Acting Department Head Department of Communication DEDICATION To my amazing family: James Carrott, my husband Amelia and Beatrix, my daughters and Bruce and Janet Robb, my parents L. Bob Rife laughs. “Y’know, watching government regulation trying to keep up with the world is my favorite sport. Remember when they busted up Ma Bell?” “Just barely.” The reporter is a woman in her twenties. “You know what it was, right?” “Voice communications monopoly.” “Right. They were in the same business as me. The information business. Moving phone conversations around on little tiny copper wires, one at a time. Government busted them up – at the same time when I was starting cable TV franchises in thirty states. Haw! Can you believe that? It’s like if they figured out a way to regulate horses at the same time the Model T and the airplane were being introduced.” -- Neal Stephenson, Snow Crash , 1992 ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I began writing this thesis in the spring, 2002, in what I now know were my carefree days, but which at the time seemed overly busy with coursework, teaching a video production class, working on a media literacy video and planning for the radio station that would become WXOJ 103.3 FM. Little did I know that I would get pregnant and move to Seattle later that year. And now, seven years and two kids later, I am approaching the end of this project. As I look back on those years – while scratching my head wondering where the time went – I know that I would not be where I am if not for the help of some tremendous people. Special thanks to Bob McChesney for helping me make my next step, after leaving my post as news director at WORT 89.9 FM, the wonderful community radio station in Madison, Wisconsin. I would like to thank professors Mari Castañeda and Sut Jhally for their knowledge, support and patience as I have (repeatedly) found my way back to this project. I would also like to thank Erica Scharrer, Briankle Chang, Lisa Henderson and Carolyn Anderson for challenging me to look at the world differently. I both thank and curse Pete Tridish for the opportunity to organize the weekend in 2005 that culminated in WXOJ going on-air for the first time. It was thrilling to see the station launch, but the endeavor stretched and challenged me in ways that I am not sure I wanted to be... Pete has also been an amazing sounding board while I wrote this paper. To my mother-in-law Kathy Veenker, I extend a thank you for the two and half weeks she spend watching a two year old Amelia while I burned the candle on both ends, leading up to and during WXOJ barnraising and 10 th Annual Grassroots Radio Coalition Conference. v There are many friends who have held my hand along the way, Thank you one and all for your kindness. A special thanks to Chad Hessoun for just telling me to sit down and write and to Jonathan and Elizabeth Maher for support both with writing and watching my kids. Marina Carrott, also my mother-in-law, spent two weeks with my girls while I pounded out the last few chapters of the thesis. She could not have come at a better time. Thank you. I want to thank my parents who have been supportive every step of the way. They opened their home to my daughters and me for five weeks last spring, taking care of the kids so I could write. They came again at deadline to support me during the final push. They have also read countless numbers of drafts, giving valuable feedback each and every time I have asked for it. I love them dearly. To my amazing daughters, Amelia and Beatrix, I thank you for your understanding and (sometimes) patience as I worked. This project pre-dates them and I do not think they entirely get it, but even so, Beatrix, my 2 ½ year old, tells me she is so proud of me and Amelia, my 5 ½ year old, gives me a necklace from her dress-up box every time I finish a chapter. And to my husband, James Carrott, thank you for trusting that I would finish. vi ABSTRACT COMMUNITY RADIO, PUBLIC INTEREST: THE LOW POWER FM SERVICE AND 21 st CENTURY MEDIA POLICY SEPTEMBER 2009 MARGO L. ROBB, B.A., UNIVERSITY OF WISCONSIN – MADISON M.A., UNIVERSITY OF MASSACHUSETTS AMHERST Directed by: Professor Mari Castañeda The introduction of the Low Power FM (LPFM) service by the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) provided a unique glimpse into media policy-making. Because usual allies disagreed over the service, the usually invisible political nature of the debate was made transparent. The project of this thesis is to contextualize the histories of radio policy, non-commercial radio, and the public interest standard to shed light on why it was so challenging to implement even a small, local radio service. Secondly, the thesis will explore the theoretical understandings of the various players in the LPFM debate, as well as the practical functioning of these tiny stations. This project also challenges the low power advocates and media reform movement to actively fight for more substantive media policy regarding civic protections. KEYWORDS: non-commercial, community, radio, low power, public interest, LPFM service. vii TABLE OF CONTENTS Page ACKNOWLEDGMENT .....................................................................................................v ABSTRACT ..................................................................................................................... vii ABBREVIATIONS ........................................................................................................... x CHAPTER 1. INTRODUCTION ..........................................................................................................1 Literature Review ....................................................................................................2 Methodology ...........................................................................................................8 Thesis Layout ........................................................................................................10 2. CONTEXTUALIZING THE PUBLIC INTEREST STANDARD ...........................15 Defining Public Interest ........................................................................................15 The LPFM Service Operating Within the Public Interest Standard .....................18 Mandating the Public Interest ...............................................................................20 Interpreting the Public Interest Standard ..............................................................26 The Fairness Doctrine Serving Public Interest .....................................................34 Reframing Public Interest to Support Commercial Interests ................................35 Inflating the Public Interest Standard with Civic Arguments ...............................42 3. THE HISTORY OF NONCOMMERCIAL RADIO .................................................44 Amateur Broadcasters ...........................................................................................44 Educational Licenses ............................................................................................49 A Public Radio Network .......................................................................................52 Power to the People ..............................................................................................53 Community Radio’s Second Wave .......................................................................55 Micropower Broadcasting......................................................................................58 4. (LOW) POWER TO THE PEOPLE ..........................................................................62 Introducing the LPFM Service ..............................................................................63 Opposition to the LPFM Service ..........................................................................64 Interference ...........................................................................................................65 Advocates for the LPFM Service ..........................................................................67 The Launch of the LPFM Service .........................................................................72 Further Debates .....................................................................................................77 The LPFM Applicants ...........................................................................................79 Form 318 ...............................................................................................................80 Lessons Learned from the LPFM Service Launch ...............................................83 viii 5. CHALLENGES TO COMMERCIAL BROADCASTING OWNERSHIP ..............87 Radio Act of 1912 .................................................................................................87 Radio Act of 1927 .................................................................................................91